Evacuees are eager to go home

Wildfires burn 233,000 acres, close roads, threaten houses

Staff and Wire Reports

Published Monday, May 14, 2007

LAKE CITY -- Authorities were able to periodically reopen two highways crossing north Florida into Georgia on Sunday but dense smoke from wildfires still covered the area, and hundreds of Florida residents waited to return to their threatened homes.

Officials said Sunday that the wildfire that had raced through the Okefenokee Swamp in southeast Georgia and into Florida had charred more than 233,700 acres _ or about 365 square miles _ since it was started by lightning a week ago.

Officials warned that storms in the forecast Sunday could bring either much-needed rain or lightning.

Authorities had closed approximately 75 miles of Interstates 75 and 10 on Saturday but were able to open the roads for a couple of hours Sunday morning. They were later forced to again close 35 miles of I-75 from the Florida-Georgia state line to Lake City, Fla., as well as a 40-mile stretch of I-10 in Florida, from Live Oak to Sanderson. The uncertainty of the closures had officials urging people to remain off roadways, and on Sunday afternoon Florida Highway Patrol officials said the interstates were closed.

A 15-mile stretch of I-75 from Valdosta, Ga., to the Florida state line remained open Sunday.

Meanwhile, about 570 residents were not being allowed to return to 150 homes evacuated between I-10 and the Florida-Georgia state line.

Firefighters working Saturday and through the night to control the blaze got help from previous prescribed burns near Lake City, Florida officials said.

"The fire burned into an area of the Osceola National Forest that had done a prescribed burn in the winter, so there was less fuel to burn," said C.J. Norvell, part of a joint federal-state forestry management team.

Division of Forestry said Sunday the Airport Road fire in Flagler County has claimed 6,800 acres and is 70 percent contained.

Georgia officials on Sunday were also working a new area of flames in northern part of the state. The fire covered approximately 200 acres in Gilmer County and Murray County and was about 50 percent contained, according to Georgia Forestry Commission spokesman Devon Dartnell. It was believed to have been caused by lightning Saturday night, Dartnell said.

The fire burning in southeast Georgia and Florida started May 5 in the middle of the Okefenokee National Wildlife Refuge. It took just six days to grow larger than another wildfire that has burned nearly 121,000 acres of Georgia forest and swampland over more than three weeks. The small fire was started by a tree falling on a power line.

The Okefenokee National Wildlife Refuge and Georgia's Steven C. Foster State Park inside it remained closed.

Haze from the fires has traveled as far south as the Miami area, about 340 miles away. The smoky skies over South Florida have disoriented birds, causing many to fly into buildings, wildlife experts said. More than 100 warblers and other small birds found injured on the ground have been brought to the Pelican Harbor Seabird Station in Miami to recover, said Wendy Fox, the agency's executive director.

"The smoke's not good for anybody, but obviously, it's throwing something off for them," Fox said.